Men's Soccer Season Preview

PRINCETON, N.J. -- The 58th season of Ivy
League men’s soccer gets underway this weekend as the Ancient
Eight begin their respective non-conference slates on Friday.

Harvard is the first team to kickoff the 2012 season, as the
Crimson head west on the Mass Pike to take on UMass in an
intra-state rivalry game that begins at 4:00 p.m. At 5:00 p.m.,
Penn opens at home versus Patriot League foe Lafayette. Columbia
and Brown are the other two Ivy teams opening the season at home.
The Bears welcome Rhode Island to Stevenson Field for a 7:00 p.m.
game that marks the first round of the 2012 Ocean State Classic
(which also features Bryant and Providence College). Also at 7:00
p.m., Columbia will take on Fairfield.

Dartmouth and Princeton open on the road versus BIG EAST
competition. The Big Green play at No. 4/1 Connecticut and the
Tigers play at Seton Hall. Both those contests are also 7:00 p.m.
starts. Rounding out Friday night’s slate, Yale plays at
Central Connecticut State at 7:00 p.m. and Cornell plays at Cal
State Fullerton in a 10:00 p.m. west coast season opener.

Coming off a 2011 season in which at least two Ivy League teams
appeared in the NCAA Championship for the seventh consecutive
season - including Brown advancing to the final 16 for the second
consecutive year - the race for the 2012 Ivy League men’s
soccer title is sure to be just as dramatic as it was a season ago
when Dartmouth and Brown ultimately tied for the League crown.

The Big Green and the Bears will be looking to defend the Ivy
League title after sharing the 2011 championship by posting 4-1-2
marks in League play. The last team to successfully defend the Ivy
title was Dartmouth, which won the 2004 title and then won a share
of the 2005 crown (with Brown and Yale).

On an individual level, the League has many returning All-Ivy
players and future stars to keep an eye on.

As it turns out, scoring may prove to come at a premium this
season as many of the returning stars can be found in goal or
marshalling backlines across the League. In net, three All-Ivy
goalies from 2011 are back in 2012, led by Cornell senior
Rick Pflasterer, who earned first team honors in
2011. Second team honoree Bobby Thalman returns to
the net for his senior season at Yale, and Dartmouth junior
Noah Cohen, an honorable mention selection n 2011,
also returns.

Four All-Ivy first team defenders from 2011 also return in 2012,
led by Princeton senior Mark Linnville. Linville
also earned first-team All-Ivy honors in 2009 and 2010 and has a
chance to become the seventh player in League history to accumulate
four such honors. Cornell junior defender Patrick
Slogic was a first team honoree in 2011 and was placed on
the MAC Hermann Trophy preseason watch list. Brown senior
Dylan Remick, one of just two unanimous All-Ivy
selections a season ago, will lead a Brown team that heads into the
season as the only Ivy team to appear in the national rankings.
Yale junior Nick Alers, a first team honoree in
2011 and an honorable mention selection as a freshman, will team
with Thalman for a formidable defensive core for the Bulldogs.

Even though several of the League’s offensive stars from
the last four seasons have moved on including 2012 Player of the
Year Lucky Mkosana (Dartmouth), budding
Philadelphia Union super-sub Antoine Hoppenot
(Princeton), the Penn tandem of Christian Barreiro
and Thomas Brandt (who netted five goals as a
defender last season) as well as the Brown duo of Sean
Rosa and TJ Popolizi, there will still be
plenty of offensive firepower across the League. Last year, 12
players scored at least five goals and seven of those 12 players
are back in 2012, led by Cornell junior Daniel
Haber, who had nine goals in 16 games last season.
Princeton senior Matt Sanner and Yale junior
Peter Jacobson are the second-leading returning
goal scorers as each netted seven goals in 2011.

Other offensive players to watch include Dartmouth senior
midfielder Kevin Dzierzawski, an All-Ivy first
team selection in 2011, who returns after a junior campaign in
which he tied for the League lead with seven assists and added four
goals for 15 points. Another upperclassman to keep an eye on is
Columbia senior forward Will Stamatis. Last season
Stamatis, who proved to be the Lions’ go to player in the
clutch last season. He earned All-Ivy first team honors after
scoring six goals, five of which were game-winning strikes and
three of those came in overtime. In two seasons, Penn junior
forward Stephen Baker has scored 13 goals and
added four assists for 30 points.

The Columbia trio of Henning Sauerbier,
David Najem and Nick Scott
combined for six goals and 11 assists last year and are poised to
provide even more offensive punch to the Lions’ midfield in
2012. Junior Connor McCarthy and senior
Brian Rogers will look to pace the Crimson
offense. Last season, McCarthy saw action in all 17 games and tied
for the Harvard lead with two goals, while Rogers, the 2009 Ivy
League Rookie of the Year, will look to cap his career in the form
he had as a freshman and sophomore when he combined for 29 points
(11 goals, seven assists). Brown senior midfielder Thomas
McNamara is also looking to make the most of his senior
season. Last year, McNamara was limited to just four games due to
injury, but still managed to score a goal and add two assists. In
his freshman and sophomore seasons, he scored eight goals.

A trio of sophomores will also look to build on impressive
freshman year offensive outputs. Penn’s Duke
Lacroix, the 2011 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, scored
five goals and added two assists as a freshman. Elsewhere, the
Princeton sophomore duo of Cameron Porter and
Julian Griggs combined for eight goals and two
assists in their freshman campaigns.

EVERY GAME COUNTS
With a seven game League schedule and no championshipship
tournament, it is no secret that every game on the Ivy schedule has
big ramifications in the chase for the League title and subsequent
automatic NCAA bid. In fact, only in 1964 (Dartmouth at 5-2-0) and
in 1975 (Brown at 5-2-0) has the League champion finished with more
than one League loss.

LEAGUE TITLE NOTES
In 57 seasons of play, the men’s soccer title has been won
outright 42 times. Fourteen times, two teams have tied for the
championship. In 2005 there was a three-way tie for the title as
Brown, Dartmouth and Yale all finished at 5-1-1.

Brown leads the way with 20 total Ivy League titles, followed by
Harvard with 13. Of Brown’s 20 titles, 12 have been won
outright – also a top mark in the Ivy record
book.

DEFENDING THE IVY CROWN
In 56 attempts to date, the Ivy League title has been successfully
defended
(meaning at least one of the previous season’s champions won
the League title the following season) 24 times. The last team to
successfully defend the Ivy title was Dartmouth, which won the 2004
title and then won a share of the 2005 crown (with Brown and
Yale).

The last time consecutive Ivy championships were won in outright
fashion was 1997 and 1998 when Brown claimed consecutive titles.
The most dominant stretch of title defenses was put together by
Columbia when it won eight consecutive League titles from 1978-85
(including sharing the 1980 title with Penn).

PERFECT IVY SEASONS
As the last team to post a perfect League season, Princeton posted
a 7-0-0 record en route to claiming the 2010 Ivy title. It was the
12th time the League champion finished with a perfect 7-0-0 mark.
Eleven other times an Ivy champion finished without a loss but had
at least one tie. Yale was the first team to post an unbeaten mark
in League play as the Bulldogs went 5-0-1 to claim the 1956
title.

CORNELL’S SLOGIC ON HERMANN WATCH
Cornell junior defender Patrick Slogic made the
2012 Hermann Trophy Watch List, it was announced by the Missouri
Athletic Club on Aug. 13. Slogic scored three goals in 2011 and
anchored a Cornell defense as he earned first-team All-Ivy
status

The Hermann Trophy is the highest individual award in college
soccer. Slogic was part of a list of 42 men’s soccer players
who are on the initial watch list. In late November, the list will
be cut down to 15 players, and from there the top three will be
announced on Dec. 6. The winner of the Hermann Trophy will then be
announced on Jan. 11.

2011 SEASON RECAP
With Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Dartmouth all entering the final
Saturday of regular-season play with designs on winning at least a
share of the 2011 title, the Bears and the Big Green ended the day
as 2011 Ivy League Co-Champions with 14 points apiece in the League
standings (4-1-2). Dartmouth earned the League’s automatic
NCAA Championship bid because the Big Green beat third-place
Columbia (2-0 at home on Oct. 22) and Brown lost at third-place
Columbia (2-1 in 2 OT on Oct. 1).

On an eventful final day of Ivy League men’s soccer play
that was full of overtime action, Brown and Dartmouth played to a
0-0 tie in a game that began at 4 pm, in Providence, R.I. Three
hours later, Cornell played host to Columbia in a game that also
ended in a tie, 1-1. The ties meant that Brown earned a share of
the program’s 20th Ivy title, the highest total in League
history. The Bears had last won the Ivy League crown in 2007. For
Dartmouth it marked the program’s ninth title overall and
first since sharing the title with Penn in 2008.

In the showdown between Dartmouth and Brown, the offenses were
active as they combined for 35 shots and 12 shots on goal. In the
end though, the goalies kept the game tied at 0-0 as Dartmouth
goalkeeper Noah Cohen made five saves and his
Brown counterpart Sam Kernan-Schloss came up with
seven stops.

In the clash in Ithaca, N.Y., Columbia took a 1-0 lead on a
David Najem goal scored in the 17th minute. But
the Big Red answered in the 41st minute when Daniel
Haber finished a Regan Tyler pass for his
ninth goal of the year. Cornell goalkeeper Zach
Zagorski made five saves in the game, while Columbia
goalie Alexander Aurrichio made eight saves.
Zagorski and Aurrichio made three saves apices in overtime to keep
the game tied.